Paper Hearts
by mystearicas
Summary: AU. In which Shion is sick, and Nezumi unwillingly takes care of him, with the help of some convenience store supplies. Fluff, Nezumi/Shion.


_Note: This story takes place in a modern AU, where Shion and Nezumi are best friends. _

**Paper Hearts**

It was the third-to-last day before winter break ended, and Shion was stuck inside with a cold. His room was littered with tissues; he wastebasket by his desk was already full, and empty tissue boxes were strewn across the floor like multicolored carcasses, making his room look like a depressing wasteland of illness.

Or maybe Shion was just being overdramatic. Still, he had only two days before school started again, and it wasn't exactly easy to graph inverse functions while his head felt fuzzy and his nose was stuffed up.

His cellphone beeped plaintively from the bed at approximately twelve in the afternoon, one of the few times that Shion felt he could sleep without having to roll over every five seconds to grab a tissue. In a half-asleep daze, he grabbed it off his bedside table instead of throwing it across the room like he wanted to (since it was the third-to-last day of winter break, he was trying to savor his last days of freedom by napping).

It was a text message from Nezumi, demanding why he hadn't got up off his ass and walked over to his house yet. Shion hadn't really told him he was sick, because as Nezumi put it, "disease was for the weak". And then he would probably drag Shion out cross-country skiing anyways.

Reluctantly he texted back that he was taking a nap and doing homework, and to please have fun with whatever extreme sport (or book, because Nezumi was weird like that—one day he'd be out climbing mountains and the next he'd refuse to get up off the couch and part with a new novel) he was entertaining himself with today. In a lot less words. And possibly with a few emoticons too.

He tried to snuggle back under the comforter and fall asleep again, except he was interrupted when he heard the door slam open downstairs (and why oh why had he given his psychopath of a best friend a spare key?).

It took a few minutes for him to realize that he should probably get up anyway, before Nezumi smashed his TV or something, but it was too late, because at that moment _his _door slammed open too, and he stared because Nezumi was wearing a T-shirt and _who did that in January? _

Nezumi started back at him for a second, silvery eyes confused, as if he couldn't possibly understand why Shion was huddled under the blankets while there were video games to be played and books to be read.

"I found this great place," Nezumi said after a moment, and Shion groaned in anticipation of the sarcasm to come. "It's called _outside_. It's really nice, I think we should go,"

Shion pulled the comforter up to his nose, glaring. "In case you haven't noticed," he said voice muffled by the cold and the blanket, so Nezumi couldn't hear how terrible his voice sounded at that moment. "I'm kind of sick. So I was _trying _to sleep and get better before we go back to school,"

Nezumi pondered this for a moment. "If it was me, I think I'd try to get as sick as possible so I wouldn't have to go back," he said seriously, and Shion rolled his eyes, turning away and curling up as if he might actually get some sleep while Nezumi was there.

"Hey, don't sleep while I'm talking to you," Nezumi snapped, walking over to sit on the bed and tapping Shion's head a couple times. "Sleep is for the weak,"

"I thought that was disease," Shion muttered, groping around for a pillow to cover his head with so that Nezumi would _go away._

"Sleep _and _disease," Nezumi corrected himself. "So you're doubly screwed, huh?"

If he had been feeling better, Shion would have made that into a joke and then laughed (inwardly) when Nezumi blushed like the little kid that he was, but he just wasn't up to it.

"Go away forever," he said finally, and burrowed deeper into the bed, trying to forget about his piles of undone homework and how much his throat hurt and evil best friends who tormented him while he was trying to sleep.

But he was still pretty surprised when he heard the creak of the bed as Nezumi got to his feet and walked across the carpeted floor, closing the door behind him. He could even hear Nezumi thump down the stairs, and the final slam and lock of the front door.

_Finally. _Shion thought, closed his eyes, and tried not to feel abandoned.

Two hours later he was rudely awakened by the slam of his bedroom door as Nezumi stomped inside, kicking tissues and their boxes out of his way and dropping two plastic bags on the bed.

"…did you buy yourself some new tampons?" Shion managed, blinking as he eyed the convenience store bags.

Nezumi threw something at him—numbly, he reached up to catch the object before it hit him in the face, and stared uncomprehendingly at the sheet of little pills, all cased in their own clear plastic square.

"Uh…"

"It's fucking _cold medicine,_" Nezumi explained in response to Shion's look of confusion and slight concern. "I got you the drinkable shit too, but I don't know if you wanted the cherry flavor, so I got you pills too,"

"Those two bags are full of _cold medicine?" _Shion asked finally.

"No, I got some other stuff too," Nezumi sat down on the bed heavily, pulling out a bag of potato chips and a DVD that was on sale for 3.99. "And some more stuff for the diseased," he pulled out a box of tea bags and some cough drops. "I also got you this," he threw something else at Shion, but it fluttered to the comforter before it got very far.

Shion laughed, but it turned into a cough instead, and he tried not to cough all over the paper as he picked it up—actually it was a card, one of those Hallmark deals with a bear hugging a heart with "get well soon" in curly letters above it.

Nezumi stared pointedly out the window.

"That's really cute," Shion snickered, opening it to read the inside, which had an open space for a signature beneath a scripted "love from" inside another heart. "Aww, look," he opened it to show Nezumi. "You're supposed to write your name there, you know,"

"I don't do stupid stuff like that," Nezumi said after a second of staring in disbelief at the heart.

Shion grinned in spite of himself—teasing Nezumi was always a great way to pass the time. "You didn't look inside before you bought it?"

The other frowned. "It was on sale. For like, fifty cents,"

"I'm hurt," Shion sniffed, poking the card as if curious to see if it would start singing. Speaking of which…"You should have gotten one of the ones that sing to you. Remember that song you liked so much last year? _The way you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed—"_

Nezumi calmly reached over and tore Shion's card in half.

"…That wasn't nice,"

"I bought it for you,"

"And then you destroyed it," Shion huffed, wiping his nose on the back of his hand, ignoring Nezumi's scandalized look.

"Yeah, I got you a box of tissues too," Nezumi muttered, rolling his eyes as Shion sniffed pathetically. He reached into the second plastic bag and tore the box open, shoving it at Shion, who took one and blew his nose.

"Thanks," Shion said between blows, and Nezumi rolled his eyes again.

"I'm gonna make some of that tea I got too," he said after another few minutes of blowing. "Want anything else?"

"Soup?" Shion offered. Some nice, soothing soup sounded _amazing. _

Nezumi glared at him. "Do you even have any soup here?"

Shion shrugged, and Nezumi threw the empty plastic bag at him before getting up and stomping downstairs, pointedly slamming the door behind him.

The other boy rolled over, grabbing at the various objects and examining them closely. There was something _nice _about all the unusual care and attention Nezumi was giving him. Usually it was the other way around.

The card, he mused, wasn't ripped beyond repair—he could always tape it back together again (in fact he thought he might as soon as Nezumi was gone). He sighed, absently rearranging the two halves to form a complete heart again, vaguely wondering if he could get away with taping it to his wall without Nezumi ripping it apart again. He smiled, eyes drifting closed, and fell asleep again.

When Nezumi stomped back upstairs with a cup of steaming tea, he found Shion curled up next to two halves of a torn card, one hand still resting on the carefully rearranged papers.

He grinned a little at that, setting the tea on Shion's bedside table before snagging a tape dispenser from the boy's desk and taping the two halves back together a little sloppily.

They hung a little lopsided, but that couldn't be helped. Tucking the card carefully on the comforter, he tried not to laugh as Shion sniffed pathetically again and moved it closer with one hand.

Without thinking about it he leaned forward, pressing his lips to Shion's forehead the way they used to do when they were sick. There was something endearing about the way Shion seemed to smile at that, Nezumi thought, and then mentally hit himself for even _considering _it and let himself out.

Shion blinked and realized it was something like two in the morning; when he grabbed his cellphone he saw he was about two hours off. It was actually around four, which made it even worse, since he really wasn't tired _at all _and it was too early for him to go back to sleep for a proper amount of time.

Groaning, he got up and started in surprise when his foot landed on paper rather than carpet; he bent down to pick up whatever it was on the floor.

The badly taped card stared back up at him, in all its soft pink glory, and Shion stared at it for a few moments, trying to remember if he had taped it together himself. He couldn't remember, but somehow he couldn't stop a smile from spreading across his face at the thought of Nezumi pressing pieces of tape to the pieces of paper.

Strangely enough, he felt much better already.

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_A/N: Prepare for the longest AN of all time._

_This was a present/request fill for __Anonystita__, for guessing the identity of Nezumi's father. xD I hope I filled it properly LOL. I admit it was really hard for me to add the kiss. xD It was a last-minute addition so I hope it's not too awkward. ;w; In terms of the other oneshots, this takes place before Simple but after Snowfall. I meant to get from their friendship to an awkward romance, but I didn't quite make it. I'm sorry! Anyway, thank you for requesting this, Anonystita! It was a lot of fun to write~._

_Unfortunately I feel like my writing in this was off, since I wrote it over the course of several days instead of like, two hours. Sorry if it seems disjointed!_


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